Monday, 24 December 2012

If there's one thing to get you in the festive mood, then in my opinion- it's a good 'ol kitchen sesh. Baking gingerbread houses especially (or cheating and just decorating one, but you know...) If you me want to get all Nigella on you, than the fragrances of the ginger and cinnamon are certainly one thing to get you excited (and then pretending the icing sugar is snow is another...) but this is certainly a Christmas cracker. So, if you fancy making a tasty treat that looks equally aesthetically amazing then look no further (recipe taken from Baking Mad's Christmas baking recipeshere)

1. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into a bowl. Rub in the butter and then stir in the sugar. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, and then add to the flour and mix to make a dough. Leave to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
2. Lightly flour a surface and roll out the gingerbread to ½ cm thick. Cut out the sections using the templates, and pop gingerbread onto the baking sheets. Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool!
3. Put the egg whites in a large bowl, and sift in the icing sugar. Put in some elbow grease and stir to make a thick, smooth icing and add lemon juice for added stickiness. Spoon some of the icing into a piping bag.
4. Pipe generous lines of icing along the wall edges (or spoon), and join the walls together!
5. Once dry, repeat the icing with the roof sections and allow to dry for half an hour or so!
6. Decorate your house with lots of colourful sweets, sprinkles, jellies (and maybe cute fairytale people) to make it look like a real Christmassy North Pole house!
7. Team the gingerbread with some cosy Christmas tea- Will Ferrell and Hugh Grant entirely optional.
Wishing you all the most wonderful Christmas tomorrow, I hope your day is filled with love, laughter, family, and good food!

x

P.S Check out Baking mad for cupcake recipes, festive and new years nibbles and much more!

The assembling and decorating is the bit that scares me the most so technically it was the most difficult bits that you did which is just great, I do love it and I in fact contemplated a great deal on whether I should make one just for aesthetic purposes, as no one likes gingerbread at my house! Happy Christmas! XX